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After Lirath, Miku had tried her best to keep from being too far underfoot. So, she'd retreated to the Meiji Shrine. Sitting on the steps, and turning her hairpin in her hands, an abandoned broom at her side, Miku tried to think of ways to be more useful. She even had prayed a bit, but it seemed as if the Emperor and Empress were concerned with more pressing things than how to make a single, pious young woman more worthy to return the help she was given.

She wasn't much of a fighter - as her poor attempts at practicing had quickly shown. She had always been someone's support. But even Steve was more helpful than she was, and he only spent time in Engineering when he wanted. Which is where Miku was fairly sure he was at now, though she hadn't actually bothered to check.

Miku sighed and flipped her long, dark hair from her shoulders with a hand. It was already getting too long and heavy for her tastes, and Stacy was warm and humid. Miku stood with a sigh and picked up her abandoned broom, tucking her hairpin away in her skirt pocket.

There was plenty to clean at the Shrine, after all.

((As a special note, if you get Miku, you will likely also get a Steve! That's two, two, two CRs for the price of one! (Shipping and Handling not included)))

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"They have to run out of leaves sometime..." Steve reasoned. Though he wasn't actually sure if there were seasons around here. Stupid Stacy.

"Yeah, Kaylee was teaching me about, uh... what are they called. Circuitboards," he said. "It's kind of cool. Way too hard for me to do by myself yet, but now I at least know the basics."

"A circuitboard?" Miku's eyebrows knitted together, completely at a loss. "Doesn't that go inside a machine?" she asked, but the tone of her voice sounded rather unsure. Hadn't Yuu spoken about that once? Or maybe Rei as she'd considered buying a word processor? Miku chewed her lip and stepped towards Steve.

"Or am I wrong?"

"You're right," he said. "It's where all the electrical parts of a machine go. I had no idea about 'em before, but Kaylee's really smart about all that kind of stuff, so she showed me how they work."

He sat down on the steps nearby her, watching her sweep. "It feels good to have something to do everyday."

"It does," Miku agreed, and suppressed the twinge of jealousy that came with Steve's praise of Kaylee. "I am glad you're enjoying everything."

Steve dragged a finger through one of the cracks on the step, digging a little in the dirt between the stones. "Yeah. Maybe it'll mean I can actually help out around here sometime, instead of just being a big problem for people to deal with."

Then he looked up at her, a vague little smile on his face. "Are you still the only one who cleans this place up?"

"For the most part," Miku smiled back, and returned to sweeping the spot she'd been working on. "I'm sure if I asked, others would come, but I don't want to bother anyone." Not everyone was as pious as Miku, after all. And the shrine needed a certain measure of care that one couldn't come at halfheartedly.

"Anyway, it gives me something to do when Nanoha doesn't need me and you are busy, and I don't want to read cookbooks."

He frowned a little bit at that, feeling somewhat guilty for abandoning her to boredom so severe she would think cleaning was a better option. "You could come along with me sometime," he offered. "Except I'd feel like I was boring you with all that machine stuff... you'd still be welcome though."

Steve reached up to brush his hair out of his face, leaning back on the steps to continue watching her. "Though I'll tell you one thing. The emperor and the empress are probably really happy with you. You're definitely their favorite person around here."

Have you met your girlfriend, Steve?

"Oh, I don't know about that. They're gods now, or at least that's what we're told. How often would a god look back on mortals?" Particularly a mortal who was unluckier than most. Finishing her cleaning, Miku returned to Steve's side and sat down.

"I thought gods were supposed to look after mortals. Take care of them and watch over them and stuff," Steve murmured. Maybe Japanese gods were a little more aloof or something.

He put his arm over her shoulder as she sat down, snugging her close to himself. "It looks nice."

"I always thought of them as... hands-off parents." Miku shrugged and rested her head under Steve's chin. She pulled hair over her shoulder, as she thought.

"They'll listen, and they'll try to help, but it is ultimately up to the person who prayed, isn't it?" Miku murmured and looked out. "However..." she looked out at the temple complex, which she had kept so diligently clean the last few months. "I don't want to accidentally incur their wrath, and get more unlucky than I am. Besides, it would be... wrong, for me, as a Japanese citizen to just let this all fall in on itself." Hopefully, they didn't mind her canoodling with an American on the steps of the temple, either.

She was sure she'd know sooner rather than later. Miku looked up at Steve. "Right?"

He bit his lip at her question. Hell... he didn't know. There wasn't any kind of American shrine that Americans were expected to take care of, so he was a little rusty on the etiquette.

"I guess so," he said. "It'd be kind of like picking up trash that someone threw on Arlington Cemetery or something."

Miku tapped her lip, "That's for your military dead, isn't it? I've seen a picture once, in one of Rei's books."

She returned her head to its place under his chin. "But this isn't really a cemetery. I mean, there aren't any places for anyone but the Emperor and his wife." She shuddered, just slightly, at the thought of more dead somewhere hidden on the grounds. "Uwa... I just scared myself a little."

"Hey, don't worry," he said, reaching over and putting his hand on her shoulder. "The emperor and his wife won't hurt you, right? They'd be nice ghosts, if they were ghosts at all."

Miku sighed, "Maybe..." She was quiet for a long while and finally spoke up. "Sometimes, though, I think the dead are jealous of the living. Which is what makes them do the things they do."

She put her hand over his heart. "There was a book once, about how they're attracted to the warmth of living people." She supposed that meant that she was some sort of delicious candy to them. The thought made her frown and edge closer to Steve.

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